Fineflies.com PROSPECTING WITH SOFT HACKLE FLIES
Soft hackle flies are perhaps the easiest fly of all to fish, and very effective in the right kind of water. The key to soft hackles is the movement of the soft Grouse or Partridge hackle. I fish soft hackles with the same set up as I use when dry fly fishing, that is floating line and a 9-foot long leader with a 2-foot long tippet. This allows a quick change to dry flies if the fish start to feed on adults. Caution: You often see surface at the beginning of the hatch, when the fish feed on emerging insects not adults. This is often the case for both caddis hatches and the Pale Morning Dun (PMD) summer mayfly. Caddis pupa are active swimmers during their accent to the surface and PMDs are active swimmers within a few inches of the surface.
Once the slack goes out of the line the soft hackle will rise and "swim" beneath the surface. This is how numerous insects hatch. Fish hitting a swimming fly on a tight line hook themselves and you will miss fewer strikes. So many feel this is the best way to introduce people to fly-fishing because drag free drifts are hard to learn, and setting the hook with too much slack on the water is not easy. Start at the top of a run and work your way down stream taking a step down stream between each cast to systematically search all of the water. If you see working fish, cast to that area repeatedly. This is a trout version of the "steelhead swing". On larger water it's possible to fish dry flies up one side of the stream, cross over and work back with wets. Or you can work wets down until the hatch starts and fish dry flies back up. Neat!
You are after subtle, rhythmic, swimming pulses. When your fly has reached the end of the swing let it pause/pulse it a few times, then retrieve it slowly towards you for a few feet before casting again. Variations of this technique can include adding weight to the line a couple of feet above the fly to get it on the bottom to mimic a drifting caddis pupa. When the line goes tight the soft hackle will rise to the surface a la "Liesenring lift." This can be very effective! The soft hackles are also very well suited as droppers behind a dry fly. Tie a piece of tippet, 8 inches to 20 inches long, to the curve of the dry fly hook and attach a soft hackle. I will generally fish this rig up and across in typical dry fly manner and work my way up stream rather than down. These are only a couple of the ways you can fish this effective fly. I've had good luck trolling one from a canoe on lakes as I paddle along too. Check out our selection of Soft Hackle Nymphs.
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To replicate these moves is easy. Pick the right water, and then use a tested
method. The best water for softhackles is a foot to four feet deep with a brisk current
and a choppy surface. They are not as effective in slow deep pools. Cast across stream and
up. Mend your line to achieve a drag free drift for as long as practical. During this
phase the mixed currents near a choppy surface give movement to the hackles while the fly
is drifting. At the end of the drag free drift, point your rod tip at the fly and
"swing" it back to your side of the stream. 
To add fly movement "pulse" the fly on the swing by shaking the rod
up and down or side to side. Move the tip of the rod only a couple of inches to put waves
into the fly line that will be pulled back out by the current. What you want is the soft
hackles to open and close without the fly moving more than an inch or so. This motion is often overdone, and you can prevent the trout from
catching the fly by erratic quick pulls. The best way to figure out how little is enough,
is to give your rod to a friend standing upstream. As your friend shakes the rod tip up
and down, watch how much the fly pulses ahead in the water for varied rod movements and
frequencies. Compare the fly movement to the size of the wave in the fly line. This needs
to be a subtle movement.